Author analyses of tourism research in the past thirty years—Based on ATR, JTR and TM

•This paper analyzes the authorship of tourism research from 2004 to 2013 based on ATR, JTR and TM.•Methods here are the number of instances and the weighted instances.•Making an authorship comparison over the past thirty years•Contributions to the three journals from different regions of the world have tremendously changed.

This study replicates two earlier studies which analyzed tourism research contributions to three major academic tourism journals (ATR, TM, and JTR) over the period of 1980–1989 and 1992–2001. Data are gathered from the three tourism journals over the past 10-year period from 2004 through 2013 which complete publication information is available and comparable. The result presents the analysis of contributions by author geographic location, author affiliations, repeat contributions by authors and by journals and the leading contributors. And this article also makes a comparison of the authors and institutions over the past thirty years. Compared with the last two decades, the authors' and institutions' contributions to the three journals from different regions of the world have tremendously changed.